So, Bungie has monkeyed with nearly everything in Halo 3. Many maps and weapon spawn points have changed; although I haven’t played this specific map yet, Epitaph is very different, from what I hear “on the street.”

News
has surfaced during an interview on Tuesday that Phil Spencer the head
of Microsoft Game Studios has announced that anywhere up to four new
Halo games could be on the way.

It has been confirmed that Microsoft is going to close Ensemble Studios after the release of Halo Wars. We are “reassured” that this does not imply anything negative about Halo Wars

Mythic Map Pack?

How can you defend against the pinch?

Bungie has unvelied the map previously known as “Purple Reign.” It’s now called Assembly. Unfortunately they won’t/can’t say anything about how or when it will be released. Here are some screens of it though:

Here is some interesting, and disturbing, info from MTV.com:

Earlier this month, a hacker bragged that he’d gained access to the Xbox Live identity — or gamertag, as it’s known — of “Halo 3″ multiplayer producer Joe Tung. This allowed him access to Tung’s account and personal information. Tung isn’t alone.

From Shacknews:
Bungie recently shot down its own rumors that bots–artificial intelligence opponents–would be added to its hit Xbox 360 shooter Halo 3. The studio behind Halo had created the bot buzz in a video acceptance speech for an EDGE Magazine award.
In denying the rumors, community manager Luke Smith blasted select members of Bungie’s famously devout [...]

So Kotaku reports the following:

Let’s review: Back in February, Gearbox Software honcho Randy Pitchford
put up a job listing for senior artist, adding: “I’ve started a new
project. It’s big. It’s, like,
look-at-our-line-up-and-imagine-something-even-bigger kind of big. I’m
Directing it myself. I can’t mention it publicly yet. When you find out
what this is, you’ll likely agree that I can’t oversell this one.”

Bungie Accepts Halo Wars